Doi Ka Noi

Name: Doi Ka Noi
Address: Vientiane, LA
Telephone: +8562055898959
Price range: ££
Rating: 5

Doi Ka Noi is permanently closed. Our book A Child of the Rice Fields: Recipes from Noi's Lao Kitchen is still available.
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The multi-award-winning book stands as my wife's enduring legacy. To buy, message through this page or email [email protected]

02/05/2026

Speaking of bamboo...here's a shot of gaeng nor mai which was a regular dish on the DKN menu. It's a classic Lao dish. The recipe is in A Child of the Rice Fields: Recipes from Noi's Lao Kitchen.

01/05/2026

Aaron just reminded khao g*i noi is also grown in Xieng Khouang's neighbouring province, Houaphan...which in turn reminded me of another fabulous ingredient from the region - bamboo.

The forests of Houaphan have many varieties of bamboo. This old picture of Noi shows her holding a couple of monster shoots of nor hok. This particular variety is eaten fresh but is often shredded and dried. A lot, along with nor kom and nor waan, is exported to Vietnam where it is very popular. Concerns have now been raised about over-harvesting.

Noi loved to feature different bamboos on the menu - highlighting regional and seasonal ingredients and recipes. We'd often return from a trip with bamboo, rattan, and other local specialties in our suitcases!

30/04/2026

One of the things that quickly becomes clear when in Thailand is that its sticky rice is inferior to that of Laos. I really will have to bring some back from Vientiane on my next visit - namely khao g*i noi from Xieng Khouang Province. It really is fabulous. Thailand has nothing that comes close. Of course, we have always known this. Noi always had khao g*i noi on the menu at Doi Ka Noi - one of the few restaurants to do so.

Noi and I actually succeeded in getting khao g*i noi registered with the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity’s ‘Ark of Taste’, an international catalogue of endangered heritage foods that are sustainably produced, unique in taste, part of a distinct eco-region, and deemed worthy of protection.

16/04/2026

If you are in Vientiane and looking for A Child of the Rice Fields: Recipes from Noi’s Lao Kitchen, copies are available.

Contact me on WhatsApp +8562029833468

A reminder that our award-winning book, A Child of the Rice Fields: Recipes from Noi's Lao Kitchen is also available in the UK exclusively through our friends

In the USA, it is available through Kitchen Arts and Letters bookshop in New York.

Elsewhere in the world, email [email protected] for shipping details.

“It’s a big, beautiful, lovingly created book: a feast for the curious cook and a comprehensive and intimately authoritative primer on a fascinating culinary culture.” Nigella Lawson

"This is really the most remarkable book on Laotian cooking, the definitive bible and an instant classic." Tom Parker Bowles.

Don't delay. Stock is limited.

25/03/2026

As the Asia's Best Restaurant Awards for 2026 were announced in Hong Kong tonight, I am reminded that this time last year Noi and I were attending the awards in Seoul. Doi Ka Noi made history as the first Lao restaurant to be named at the awards – coming in at number 86 in the extended list. It was said that "Doi Ka Noi was a pioneering force in putting Laotian cuisine on the international culinary map."

A year on, Noi remains the only Lao restaurant to have ever been selected for these prestigious awards. How about that!

For our humble restaurant serving regional, seasonal dishes all cooked by Noi, it was a huge achievement – international recognition of her talent and her uncompromising approach to Lao food. I feel confident that she would have reached even greater heights at the awards this year.

We started Doi Ka Noi with no money but lots of passion. It became so much more that a restaurant. We shared food and a few infused gins with people who would become lifelong friends. We used our profits, meagre though they were, to fund the self-publishing our book which went on to win multiple awards, and for many trips in Laos to research a second volume. Our life and work become completely and perfectly entwined. After 15 years together we were still totally besotted with each other.

Without doubt Noi did more than anyone to shine the spotlight on Lao food, be that on the tables at Doi Ka Noi, through the pages of our book, A Child of the Rice Fields: Recipes from Noi's Lao Kitchen, in her passion for the ethnic cuisines of Laos, her work on nutrition for children in rural Laos, and her willingness to share knowledge. And she did it so beautifully. And seemingly so effortlessly. As anyone who knows Laos would expec, in Laos her achievements were ignored. She wasn’t part of The Club. If it wasn’t for the kind support of , nothing at all would have been written about her, our book, the restaurant, or the prestigious awards she won. Noi remains an unrecognised Lao national treasure, appreciated only by the few that experienced her cooking and understood it.

I have started posting videos on a YouTube channel . Please watch and subscribe.

10/03/2026

Are you in Vientiane and looking for a copy of A Child of the Rice Fields?

Contact Jason at the RDK during office hours, Monday to Friday. Don't delay. Stock is limited. Self pick up only. No delivery!

23/02/2026

I have just uploaded the tribute video of Noi onto the YouTube channel. Please go and watch it, like it and subscribe.

The first part of the video was filmed just two days before she died and was to be the first of a series of educational and documentary style videos on Lao food and culture. Noi was a natural in front of the camera. Like the restaurant and our book, the channel would have stood out from the crowd. We intended it to be a departure from the usual food channels. Sadly it was not to be. However, I will upscale some of our old simple phone videos and post them as shorts in the near future.

With thanks to Adam Purcell and .offtherails

04/02/2026

I can't tell you how fu**ed up it is that Noi is not here to hear me read comments like this but I am proud of what we acheived together. This one moved me to tears. Thank you, Andreas in Sweden.

If you haven't got a copy yet...get a move on. Stock is limited.

30/01/2026

Get your books by tomorrow p.m.

A Child of the Rice Fields: Recipes from Noi's Lao Kitchen will no longer be available in Laos. All stock will be overseas.

If you want a copy or copies you need to get in touch before the January 31st. I can send anywhere in Laos with HAL.

PM me here or email [email protected]

29/01/2026

I get many emails and messages about our book. Before Noi died, I would always read and translate them for her. I still do, out loud, in the unlikely event I am wrong in my beliefs and she can hear me, is looking over me, waiting for me. I remember her humble delight when I read them (softly 'oh, dee, na' 'that's good isn't it?', and then her radiant smile), the pride she had in her food, and in what we had built together. I like to think that the book has been so well received because it reflects how we loved working together, and that it was made, as we lived and as Noi cooked, without compromise.

And so to the message posted here - a follow-up from Stephen in Taiwan after he has had time to read and digest the book. Someone I do not know but he has taken time to write. It's kind and considered. It is a message that helps give me the strength to push on with the second book Noi and I started - a task that often drains me and feels like it is an impossibility but in time it will be completed. I will bring something else into the world that would never exist were it not for my remarkable wife and our love for each other.

22/01/2026

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

At the end of this month, A Child of the Rice Fields: Recipes from Noi's Lao Kitchen will no longer be available in Laos. All stock will be overseas.

If you want a copy or copies you need to get in touch before the January 31st.

PM me here or email [email protected]

Address

Vientiane

Telephone

+8562055898959

Website

http://www.doikanoi.com/

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